If you’re looking for something on a budget the Acer Aspire One AO722 is available on Amazon for $333, and you want the multimedia performance and along side a high-definition widescreen display by CrystalBrite LED backlit. The Acer Aspire One AO722 running Windows 7 Home Premium operating system and AMD processor using C Series C-50. If you’re not familiar with the AMD C-50 Processor its a pretty impressive piece of machinery, check out our performance and gaming review of here, don’t be offended by my poor Crisis skillz…the point is you can play!

Design

The Acer Aspire One 722 is a thin and svelte looking 11.6″ netbook with tapered edges and clean lines. Its got a little bit of design aesthetic with a ripple effect on the lid. It look like you’ve dropped a pebble into a still pool of water which would be perfect if not for the glossy lid that picks up finger prints extremely easily! The unit measuring 11.2 x 7.9 x 1.0 inches and weighing 3 pounds, the Aspire One 722 is relatively light and portable.

Keyboard & Trackpad

The keyboard is full size and even though it does have a small amount of flexibility I found it to work out perfectly. I have a few typing errors for the first hour and found that a firm press of the key solved all of my typing issues. Its got full size right and left shift key’s and a great design around the arrows adding in additional page up and down buttons.

The trackpad is a large 3.2 x 2.0-inch that offers multi-touch and a scroll bar on the left hand side. Its frictionless which actually takes me a day or two to get used to, but its accurate and once you get the hand of the gestures you’ll find its an easy way to navigate through your netbook. The single mouse button is large as well, but I would rather have separate mouse buttons since I disapprove of the dead space in the middle.

Display

The Aspire One has a LED-backlit 11.6-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution and a glossy finish. the screen brightness could be better, I was left wanting to bump it up a few extra notches even in normal to dim lighting. The viewing angles weren’t great but we’ve seen much worse. The speakers are a whole other story! They could use an extra 3 notches and there is no base and the highs are almost tinny but 100% was good enough for personal viewing, but not nearly enough to fill the room. So as a multimedia machine its not quite good enough.

Webcam

The 0.3MP webcam was surprising crisp and clear. The camera auto-adjusted well, and when we moved around there was little to no blurring. We found the shadows to be a little dark but all in all it is a great addition to the device and will allow for many hours of skype calling.

Performance

The 1GHz AMD C-50 Fusion APU with 2GB of RAM had the Aspire One 722 a score of 1,527 on PCMark Vantage and 1,168 on Geekbench. The average Ultra portable like the dm1z with the dual core AMD E-350 scored 2,198. This PCMark Vantage score actually comes in right around the average netbook score which is unusual for the C-50 which usually a little bit higher.

The integrated graphics–AMD Radeon HD 6250–scored 1,630 on 3DMark06 which is much better than the average netbook (347), however, the Pavilion dm1z scored 2,217. We were also able to watch 1080p video streamed from the web or played from the hard drive.

Battery Test

This very thin 11.6″ 4 cell netbook lasted 6 hours and 58 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test (Web surfing via Wi-Fi) which is longer than the average netbook (6:17), and just a bit above the Pavilion dm1z (6:37).

Conclusion

If you’re after a netbook that has a slightly bigger screen then the 11.6″ ultra portable Acer Aspire One 722 is a decent option for anyone on a budget. Everything works and the build quality is decent, the plastic doesn’t feel cheap even though the lid is a finger print magnet. If you’re after a device that is great for watching a couple of movie, email, facebook and its keyboard and decent screen size will allow you to comfortably write for hours at a time. Plus you can’t beat the price, on Amazon right now its $292!

Thanks for the review. I’ll be getting this for the upcoming school year.

Orion9727

i dont see a ultra portable latop sporting a c 50 much good,first it wont really offer anything better then a atom ion combo.
at the very lest i would expect a E 350/450 or a CULV cpu.
whats the use of a ultra portable that cant really run flash well or media or at the same time cant run office apps or photo shop.
a E350 just enters that world really it just strong in the media where the atoms are weak but any CULV can do this on it own.
i know sandy bridge is lacking in the CULV area where 10 TDP is needed and that a shame intel cant manage to bridge the gap between atom and a sandy bridge like chip.
i really dont see a market for E350 like devices that dont pack a hdmi port either.
i am looking at you G575.
there alot of sub 500 doller notebooks but they all lack the cord that makes netflix or hulu possible on a tv and thats something i think we going to see as more people more to lcd tv most of all studets and yound people who will want to have there cake and eat it too.

Hi Nicole, I have to say I enjoy your reviews and videos on various netbooks and the latest tech. I am currently interested in getting a netbook because I think it would be easier than lugging around my 15-inch laptop. I’m a college student and I bring my laptop everywhere with me. I mainly use my laptop for e-mails, word doc, powerpoint, excel spread sheets, youtube, hulu, and lastly facebook.

My question is: what netbook do you suggest I buy?

I saw your Acer Aspire One AO722 video, and I’m thinking about getting it.
Is there anything out there right now that is better in every aspect of than the Acer Aspire One AO722??? Also does the Acer Aspire One AO722 have a 6 cell battery??
My price range is $400-$500